


With Equal Grace

by Barb Cummings (Rahirah)



Series: The Barbverse [119]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-24
Updated: 2010-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 00:57:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/143599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rahirah/pseuds/Barb%20Cummings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Retirement ain't all bad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Equal Grace

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place in the same universe as "Raising In the Sun," "Necessary Evils," and "A Parliament of Monsters." It contains spoilers for previous stories in the series. This was written for the Schmoop Bingo prompt "Massage - Erotic," and a promptfic request I got awhile ago requesting comfort sex after the last of the kids go away to school. (I think the original prompter was thinking kindergarten, but, well, college is school too.) It's also a bit of a bookend to [this fic.](http://sleepingjaguars.com/buffy/viewstory.php?sid=42&chapter=1)

It's been a good night. Celebrating the empty nest with dinner, dancing, and only one upstart vampire on the way home who thinks (thought) a retired Slayer and her consort would be easy pickings. When they get home there's a message from Jess: _Hi Mom and Dad, love you, can you FedEx everything I forgot to pack ASAP?_ Buffy stifles her moment of "Wah, my baby's all grown up!" in Spike's shoulder (if she so much as sniffles he'll get all misty too) and whispers in his ear that the night's about to get a lot better.

When she gets out of the shower, Spike's nuzzled up to his pillow and already half asleep. Demon strength doesn't diminish with age, but the mortal bodies that house it take longer to recoup. But he rouses quickly enough when she drops her towel on the floor - let him pick it up for a change - and slides onto the bed beside him. The mattress creaks as she leans over him to get the oil, and Spike lets out a drowsy rumble, half-growl, half-purr. Droplets trickle through her fingers, to spatter his shoulder blades like fragrant, unctuous rain.

He groans aloud as her fingers dig into the muscles of his neck. Spike's a tactile guy: he loves to touch and be touched. And it's a pleasure to touch him, too, to slide her hands down the long, clean lines of his back, and up again to the breadth of his shoulders. To feel the strong cords of muscle rolling beneath her fingers, the hard bone beneath, and measure with her own the sinewy reach of his arms, limp now in repose. You can't exactly say that a vampire tans, but Spike braves incineration by sunlight often enough that after all these years, his skin shades from mellow ivory below his shirt-sleeve to milky, blue-veined marble above.

To touch him is to know he's anything but stone. It's not a young man's body any longer, Spike's. He keeps in fighting trim - they both do, since there's no shortage of upstart vampires. But he's heading up on seventy in human years, and though he could pass for younger, he'd scorn to do so. To him the grey in his hair and the increasing give to his belly are hard-won trophies, and for all he grumbles about slowing down, he enjoys them thoroughly. Maybe that's got more to do than good genes and demon healing with why he's always worn his years lightly, however you count them up.

When he changes, he's closer than ever to the demon-self she saw in Pylea: short, spiky horns sprout along the ridges of his brows and the line of his jaw, his nails become claws, his jaw elongates to better accommodate his fangs. Scales ripple across his body, their matte sheen brightening as she massages the oil into his shoulders, gleaming in the candlelight like semiprecious stones. Intricate patterns in rich brown and muted greens chase down his spine, a mosaic in moss and olive, lichen and dusty sage.

She rolls him over and his purr intensifies, golden eyes slitting in delight. Buffy pours more oil, spilling it lavishly across his hide. Her hands glide in sensuous arcs across the muscular plateau of his chest and down over the yielding firmness of his comfortably padded tummy. She loves the feel of him, so: where the scales on his back are the size of her thumbnail, tough and glossy, his creamy-gold belly hide is as soft and supple as kidskin, each individual scale no larger than the head of a pin. She works her way downwards, humming in counterpoint to his raspy purr as his claws knead the sheets.

Little Spike swells and hardens, nudging her slick fingers companionably as she teases, strokes, caresses. They don't rush right into things they way they used to, but a slow burn generates just as much heat as a flash-fire - more, if you stoke it right. Spike makes a lazy, boneless revolution, and she's beneath him. His fangy grin disappears between her thighs, and then he's putting that long slithery demon tongue to its best possible use. Licking, nipping, thrusting, he coaxes her willing body to a pitch to match his own. Buffy gasps and writhes against the pillows, grabbing hold of the two largest of his forehead-horns to pull him closer. Admiring, in the small abstract part of her mind that's still capable of such things, their sturdiness, the way their blunt, elegant lines echo the leonine arch of his cheekbones, a constant in either shape.

Long ago, in the days when he had centuries instead of decades ahead of him, she asked him if he'd resent her aging body someday. Spike just gave her the "You're daft," look and replied that considering a Slayer's average life expectancy, if she died of old age, it'd be his dearest wish come true. Which, romantic, but she hadn't really gotten it, because, well, old = ew.

She gets it now.

In those long-ago days she'd wished him all the centuries that were his due, gazed upon his human face, and knowing what she did of the way vampires aged, truly hoped he'd outlive its beauty. Now as he rises up and sinks into her, she knows that Spike could live a thousand years, and he'll never grow old enough to be ugly.

 **End**


End file.
